Bit Prepared II: Richard Stallman Meets the World Scout Bureau

Richard Stallman from the FSF, Ray Saunders from the World Scout Bureau and the author discuss the connections between free software and Scouting philosophies.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) promotes computer users' rights to
use, modify and redistribute free (as in freedom, regardless of
price) software and documentation. All around the world, national and
international organizations
exist that independently take their inspiration from the writings of
Baden-Powell, who started Scouting in 1907.

What could Baden-Powell have in common with FSF? Nothing, except
a few essential ethical principles. In
"Bit Prepared, Part I,
I wrote, "[GNU/] Linux and the whole FLOSS movement do appear as the soul
of Scouting made software: the first, if not only, kind of IT technology that should
to Scouts, or used by their leaders".

After writing that article, I was contacted by the
World Organization of the Scout Movement
(WOSM), an umbrella body that brings together Scout organizations from more than 150
countries. Implementation of the WOSM policies adopted by the World
Scout Conference largely is delegated to a professional body, the
World Scout Bureau (WSB). I asked the WSB and FSF if they would be to have representatives
meet on-line to discuss my theses and to find out if and how WOSM should use
products and practices from the free software movement in its activities.

The initial feedback from both organizations was encouraging. Richard M. Stallman, founder of
FSF, said, "[The Bit Prepared article] is very interesting.... You may
succeed in starting something very useful with this." WOSM never had
addressed itself directly to the question of adopting particular IT
policies at a world level, but according to Ray Saunders, WSB
Director, Information Technology, "the synergy between the ideals of
Scouting and the principles under-pinning the Open Source community is
indeed evident." Starting from there, I engaged Richard and Ray in the
e-mail interview that follows.

Marco Fioretti: What is free software?

Richard Stallman: Free software is software that users are free to run, study,
change and redistribute. It means that you are free to adapt it to
your needs and free to help others by sharing it. By contrast,
non-free software prohibits cooperation.

Fioretti: In the "Bit Prepared" article,
I listed some affinities between the philosophy of Scouting and that of the Free
Software movement. What do you think about them?

Stallman: That such similarities should exist does not surprise me,
because ideas of self-reliance and the importance of helping your
neighbor circulate in our society and will pop up in various
places. However, I think it was a good stroke of insight on your part
to notice this particular similarity.

Ray Saunders: I think we can all agree that the good practices evident in the
Free Software community seem to me to be entirely consistent with the
method and ideals represented in Scouting today.

Fioretti: Does the WOSM currently recommend the use of any specific
software product?

Saunders: No, for the very reasons that are stated in your introduction above.

Fioretti: What are the criteria currently used by the World Scout Bureau
when choosing software for internal use?

Saunders: We try to select the most appropriate software according to our
needs and, of course, our means. Cost is a very important criteria for
us. When we spend money, we are spending our members money. The World
Scout Bureau primarily but not exclusively uses Apple Macintosh
computers. As we migrate to Mac OS X, the possibilities for us to use
open source and free software are now much wider than they were just a
couple of years ago. As a result, open source and free software
solutions are now actively being considered alongside the commercial
products we currently use. We are already upgrading some of the
commercial software we used previously to open source or free software
alternatives. [Editors' Note: Other success stories of Scouts using free
software can be found in the comments to "Bit Prepared" posted by Ray
and Gino Lucrezi of Global Scoutnet.

Fioretti: Do the Free Software Foundation and GNU
recommend the usage of only the software they produce? If yes, why? If not, how does one
choose to adopt any software program, regardless of its origin?

Stallman: It's not who was the developer, it's whether he respects your
freedom that matters. If you want to live in freedom, you've got to
reject software that tramples your freedom. You shouldn't stand for
software that keeps you helpless or forbids helping others. When a
program is free software, that means you and others can see what it
does. So you can listen to other people in the community who have
studied it and used it and thus decide whether you want to use it. If
you really are concerned about what the program does, you can read the
code yourself.

Fioretti: Many national Scout organizations have Merit Badge systems that
aim to help young members learn practical skills in a variety of
disciplines. Software and Internet already are proposed as Merit Badge
subjects in many associations. Is there any policy requesting that the
candidate must know the difference between proprietary and free software? At
least to know when and how it is right and legal to copy and
redistribute programs?

Saunders: Any such policy would be a matter for the national Scout
organization proposing the merit badge to its members. I would hope
that in the face of today's reality of pirated software, the issues
surrounding copyright and licensing would be addressed in some form
within the relevant requirements. That approach certainly would
provide ample opportunity to raise awareness about the differences to
which you refer. It also should improve knowledge about the
availability of open-source and free software solutions to the wider
community.

Fioretti: Do you have any suggestions or comments regarding
the merit badge requirements list proposed in the "Bit Prepared" article?

Stallman: I think they look fine.

Saunders: There are a couple of places I might want to substitute "discuss"
with "demonstrate", but they represent a good starting point for any
national Scout organization thinking of introducing or reviewing a
computer merit badge scheme today.

Fioretti: Should a Scout association decide to try or switch to free
software or at least free formats and protocols, where can it find
help from the free software community?

Stallman: Look in
www.gnu.org/directory for our list of over
3,500 ready-to-use free software packages that run on GNU/Linux. If
you're considering using a program that isn't in the directory,
www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
can help you judge whether a license qualifies as free. If you live in a city, there are
people in the city who know how to use GNU/Linux. There probably is a
user group there. If you approach them asking them to help your troop
switch, they probably will be glad to help. [Editors' Note: Two on-line lists
of user groups can be found here
and here.]

Fioretti: Ray, what about support from within WOSM, besides Global Scoutnet?

Saunders: I'm not aware of Scout-specific resources addressing directly
this topic. Perhaps your readers can inform me otherwise? There are a
number of software applications related to Scout activities, developed
by Scouts and made available to other Scouts to use, though not always
free. Some are listed at David Jansen's
InterNETional Scouting and Guiding Pages.
The
UNESCO's Free Software Portal
also is a very helpful starting point.

The
Jamboree on the Internet (JOTI), an
annual event during which Scouting experiences are exchanged and ideas
are shared, contributes knowledge to the world brotherhood of
Scouting. During JOTI, as many as half-a-million Scouts from all over
the world make contact with one another using the full range of
operating systems and software, much of it using open-source
software. Certainly there's the opportunity within that event for a
bit more research on these issues. This year's event runs October 16-17.

Fioretti: Will there be a specific forum devoted to these issues as part of JOTI?
If yes, could I or Richard participate to represent the free software
community?

Saunders: Not as far as I am aware this year, but it's a good suggestion for
the future. Full information about this year's events can be found by
following the links from our
Web site.

Fioretti: Ray brought some interesting Scout
documents to my attention.
Strategic Priority #7
of the current World Scout Strategy says, "Effective
communications are vital to all aspects of Scouting.... Modern
technologies offer Scouting many new techniques for doing this, more
effectively, more efficiently and at a lower cost". Eduardo Missoni,
WOSM Secretary General, also said in
his speech
at the 2004 European Scout Conference, "According to our principles and values, we will be in the front line
in exploring and adopting open, universally accessible and appropriate
technologies". Richard, were you aware of this? What do you think?

Stallman: One could interpret this as meaning free software, but one
also could interpret it in other weaker ways.

Fioretti: I agree, but the statements above seem to match perfectly the
recommendations I made at the end of "Bit Prepared". For example,
all Scout organizations should make sure their Web sites are
viewable with
any browser and,
above all, don't accept or distribute documents in proprietary formats,
as
Richard suggested some time ago.

Saunders: I welcome the anybrowser.org campaign. Internationally agreed
standards should not be subsequently enhanced to commercial
advantage, which often renders the results incompatible with
standards-compliant browsers. We need to check our own sites from time
to time and ensure that we are achieving maximum accessibility for
users based on the agreed standards, not the modified versions created
largely by proprietary products and tools.

We must distinguish here between good and bad practices in the field
of proprietary formats. For example, I would describe a proprietary
format for which the proprietor provides freely available reader
software (such as Adobe does for its proprietary portable document
format .pdf) as an acceptable practice. As a result, I am happy to
distribute and receive documents in that format. My core sensitivity
is that the recipient of any item I send should not have to go out and
purchase a proprietary product in order to read my content.

Proprietary products using open standards for their file types also
sit comfortably in my portfolio of acceptable solutions. You get what
you pay for and can migrate to another product with relative ease,
because the content you have produced is not locked-in to the creative
tool.

Stallman: A zero-price but secret
reader program still would take the user's freedom even if it did
not take the user's money. What makes the PDF format open--thus,
not proprietary--is its documentation is public and, aside from
the newest features that mostly are not used, it is not covered by
patents, so anyone can implement it. I use free software to use PDF files.

Fioretti: Of course, the easiest way to prepare a migration to free
software or, at least, to achieve universal accessibility is to switch
as soon as possible to free cross-platform programs, such as the
communication suite Mozilla and, above all,
OASIS office file formats through
OpenOffice.org. Doing so would guarantee that
every Scout always could access Scout information, that e-mail could be
signed digitally according to standards and that Web sites could be
generated for the widest possible audience. After these steps, every
single Scout or Scout unit then would be free to decide if, when and
how to make a complete transition to free software.

Now, let's assume the WSB fully accepts this policy. Ray, may we ask
you to explain what procedure the WSB should follow to officially
embrace it; if and how it could request or suggest that the national
associations do the same; and how official practical guidelines could
be provided to facilitate its adoption?

Saunders: We like to talk about learning by doing
in Scouting. So my message to any Scout reading this is to make a personal commitment now
to get involved and try some free software for yourself, as I have
done. For example, I'm currently involved in the alpha test of
NeoOffice/J,
the great Java implementation of OpenOffice.org 1.1.2 created by Patrick
Luby for us Mac OS X users. It's important that
as many Scouts as possible contribute to this process of change
from a position of personal experience. So, the first guideline might
be best expressed as, "Think globally. Act locally!"

Second, I think it will be important to ensure that the young people
attending our World Scout events encounter open source and free
software on the computers put at their disposal on those
occasions. This already has happened with success during the last
World Scout Jamboree in Thailand, for example. I remind you again that
much of the annual Jamboree on the Internet already is functioning on
open-source software solutions, so that is another area where our
young members and their adult leaders can gain practical, hands-on
experience using free software.

Third, I think it is essential to be able to demonstrate that the use of
open-source software, such as OpenOffice, is a reality in the Central
Office of the World Scout Bureau. We have started providing our
internal stationery templates in OpenOffice.org format files, and a number
of the team in Geneva already have migrated to using OpenOffice.org. I'm
pleased to include Eduardo Missoni amongst those users reporting that
they are very satisfied with the experience. So, professionally, we've
already begun to play our small part in the process of creating
momentum for change.

All these successful experiences then can be used to promote the use
of free and open-source software to others, such as the leaders of
national Scout organizations and the volunteers serving on the World
Scout Committee or on our regional Scout committees.

I believe that taking practical steps, such as these I've outlined
above, will create the necessary critical mass required to bring about
policy changes inside our national member organizations that,
ultimately, can result in them collectively choosing to adopt policies
to be promoted at the world level.

Stallman: I have to point out that to contrast free software with
commercial software is like contrasting tall people with thin
people. Some free software is commercial (developed by businesses),
just as some tall people are thin. Copies of free software often are
sold for a price; meanwhile, some non-free programs are available
gratis.

The issue is not about business and not about price--it's about
freedom. Free software respects the user's freedom; non-free software
does not. If a program is free, you can "leave it better than you
found it" if you so wish, and that's where free software meets the
spirit of Scouting.

When choosing any given program, I suggest you verify that it is free
software and that it can run on a free platform. MacOS is not free
and neither is the usual Java platform. So, if NeoOffice/J depends on
them, it cannot be used without limiting your freedom.

Saunders: Using enabling technologies in the short term that
allow many more people to try out free or open-source software now may be
limiting, in Richard's view, but if it helps more people get on the bus and
take a tour for themselves, that should be to the benefit
of an organization such as FSF, as awareness and support for free (as
in freedom) software grows. And that, I believe, is in everyone's best
interests.

Fioretti: I am glad to hear all this for two reasons. The first is,
from now on, it will be hard for any Scout to ignore the ideals
of free software and the importance of communicating through truly
open technologies. The second reason is the approach described by Ray makes
it possible for single Scouts or Scouts units to migrate to free
software if and when they choose, in the smoothest possible way.

I therefore conclude this interview with four short invitations. The first
is to all Scouts: please try the software Ray and Richard mention and contact
the closest GNU/Linux user group for help. The second is to all supporters of
free software, starting with OpenOffice.org and Mozilla: send this article and "Bit Prepared" Part I or
bring it by hand to the closest Scout group and offer your help to try
free software. Next, to make all this easier, everybody who can
translate both articles in other languages, please
mfioretti@mclink.it contact me. Last but not least, any
other organization inspired by Baden-Powell is welcome to contact me; I am
eager to know what you think of free software.

Comment viewing options

As described in the article, the philosophy of Free Software as described by Richard and many other people has many common with scouting. There are also common ways to reach this aims as "learning by doing", helping the user to find the technology solution of her or his problem by her or his own efforts and so on. Also both communities are international and non-discriminating. They have the same spirit of brotherhood.

So working in a Free-Software-community may be one way to follow scout-ideals as adult.

With time things do change. On May 9, 2008 the Boy Scouts of America announced the release of their Open Source Initiative project. The OSI project was directed at creating an Open Source Software resource to provide a wide variety of services to the organization.

Proprietary products using open standards for their file types also sit comfortably in my portfolio of acceptable solutions. You get what you pay for and can migrate to another product with relative ease, because the content you have produced is not locked-in to the creative tool.

I'm from Russia and I hope you will excuse my English...
I can't estimate this article to the full. I only can tell, how in Russia concern to this problem. It is possible to tell, that in Russia there is no problem of free software. Today in Russia cracked software is very popular and everyone can buy any software for 2 dollars. I think it really badly. I hope sometime in Russia software will be license as in Europe or USA.
--------------------
Yours faithfully,
Nik Ozerov

Well, from the one hand you are right, there are a lot of cracked software in the Russia, BUT if you don't want to increase pirates' income and want to help to developers of this soft you should buy license for it(or key). If everyone buy software it decrease problem of pirates.

Software is part of our world today. Scouting is discovering this world.

As described in the article, the philosophy of Free Software as described by Richard and many other people has many common with scouting. There are also common ways to reach this aims as "learning by doing", helping the user to find the solution of her or his problem by her or his own efforts and so on. Also both communities are international and non-discriminating. They have the same spirit of brotherhood.

So working in a Free-Software-community may be one way to follow scout-ideals as adult.

Michael, former scout (DPSG), fellow of the FSFE and Debian GNU/Linux-user

I think it is essential to be able to demonstrate that the use of open-source software, such as OpenOffice, is a reality in the Central Office of the World Scout Bureau. We have started providing our internal stationery templates in OpenOffice.org format files, and a number of the team in Geneva already have migrated to using OpenOffice.org. I'm pleased to include Eduardo Missoni amongst those users reporting that they are very satisfied with the experience.

Additionally, Free Software is an excellent opportunity for Scouts to "Be Prepared" for the use of technology in any situation, especially when they're looking for "Good Turn" opportunities. Here's an example: there's a neighborhood school that is having trouble getting technology, i. e. computers, due to Finances, Fear, and unFamiliarity on behalf of the staff. No problem! A Scout who is familiar with, say, K12LTSP can go in, show the school how to implement an entire computer lab for one-fifth or less of the cost of a proprietary solution, and then help the staff to actually do it. Thus, the school gets technology access to their kids, at a low price, and the students and staff learn something. This would indeed be an excellent Good Turn!

I recall a similar struggle a few years ago in which the 7 Principles of the Cooperative movement indicate that only Free Software should be used. However, as with the Scouts, the housing co-op in which i lived and its umbrella organizations cited cost factors (not in the Principles) for staying with the proprietary stuff, understandably including retraining of office staff and IT administrators. Another factor was the desire to train co-op member volunteers in "real world job skills". Assigning any kind of priority to making a transition to FLOSS seemed to be the hardest thing to do.

It still is a problem among many other NGOs whose principles align with the Free Software movement but who get proprietary software "donated" or simply pirated by well meaning volunteers.

Of course, in practice there will be a lot of cases where resistance will be made, and often with very valid reasons too.

After this article, however, I hope it will become impossible in Scouting to just dismiss the issue without providing really valid reasons, to leave official websites only viewable with proprietary browsers, and to distribute or pretend any official document (like the papers to become a Scoutmaster) in proprietary formats.

Oh, and please forward the article, if you already didn't, to all the Scouts you know, and to everybody else you find appropriate.

your article is really good and well written, i also forwarded and recommend it to some scouts i know and for sure to some people which i think are interested in the topic too, btw. i have got some positive feedbacks of some of them.

"Cost is a very important criteria for us. When we spend money, we are spending our members money. The World Scout Bureau primarily but not exclusively uses Apple Macintosh computers."
I hope those Mcintosh and the software were a gift, they

Macintosh computers have a very high price-quality ratio even though they're not cheap. Surely they have lower maintainance costs, because the hardware is pretty well standardized (the manufacturer-of-the-day effect causes so many new PCs to give endless plug&pray problems).

Ok, I know this is kind of off topic, but I was not the one bringing it up: What is so "conformist" philosophy with scouting? It might be in the US, but not in my part of the world. In my part of the world, the basic "skills" and values you learn in scouting is cooperation, leadership, practical skills and tolerance. In no way is "obedience" a part of this, though respect might be. The image of scouting does suffer quite a bit by association with it's founder (a military officer), misguided perceptions, Hewey, Lewey and Dewey (is that their name?) in Donald Duck, and US-centrisism. Although I'm sure there are different ways to do scouting in US too, my perception is that you might be more right about US scouting than scouting here in Norway, for example.

Oh, btw, in my spare time I'm making the publishing system for the district web site, based on PHP/mysql. I *am* toying with the idea of realeasing an open source project based on it, but I'd like to see clean it up and document it a little more. Cooperation and sharing is definitely within the values of scouting.

As a matter of fact, one of the things B-P pointed out when he started Scouting was that he found the current military training system too rigid,
and producing massified individuals, unable to act independently.
It is also true that what Donald Duck's nephews do is not Scouting, and Scouting suffers from being confused with that, even here
in Italy.
Last but not least, you raised another important point that I hope all readers consider. I am talking of Scouting:

worldwide

as originally proposed in B-P writings.

It is exactly for this purpose that I only looked for, and proposed, B-P's quotes to prove my theses.

Please let's have well clear the distinction between that and any single
national Scout association. I say this not as a critique to any particular organization, just to keep the right perspective.

As a former Scout, I agree that Scouting and the Free Software Movement do have significant overlap with respect to basic ethics, and I agree that Scouting should be using Free Software at all levels. Since the WSB is "primarily a Mac" shop, I would invite them to try out Yellow Dog Linux (http://www.yellowdoglinux.com), a very easy-to-use Free platform; it's basically Red Hat Linux for the PowerPC. I have run it on my Macs now for a year and a half, including a Power Mac G3 Blue and White, and I find it excellent.

Additionally, Free Software is an excellent opportunity for Scouts to "Be Prepared" for the use of technology in any situation, especially when they're looking for "Good Turn" opportunities. Here's an example: there's a neighborhood school that is having trouble getting technology, i. e. computers, due to Finances, Fear, and unFamiliarity on behalf of the staff. No problem! A Scout who is familiar with, say, K12LTSP (http://www.k12ltsp.org) can go in, show the school how to implement an entire computer lab for one-fifth or less of the cost of a proprietary solution, and then help the staff to actually do it. Thus, the school gets technology access to their kids, at a low price, and the students and staff learn something. This would indeed be an excellent Good Turn!

Oh, not to mention this: now that this school has operational technology, naturally, the kids are going to want to use it at home, too. No problem! It's Free Software; the school can make as many copies of it as they want, and not only is it legal, but actively encouraged to do so.

Please remember that this is a transcript of a dialogue among people of
different nations.

I have pasted in the text of the answers as I have received it, and I could
not have done differently. If there is something wrong with my
grammar, I am interested to know it. Being a non native English speaker,
I am always willing to learn better. Not in this forum and web page, of
course, as it is absolutely off topic (as in "let's stop this thread now"). If you feel like helping me, just email
to me my sentences and the correct form.

Hello, everybody,
Just repeating the same friendly request I made to all readers after the first article:

As far as this forum is concerned, let's just analyze if Baden-Powell thought does imply and require that Scouts should use Free Software (the philosophy, more than any single "product") in principle, regardless of anything else. This is why I wrote the article: I will ignore (in this forum, of course) any side comment, and am asking the readers to do the same.

Thread hijacking (jumping into any online discussion and start talking of something else) is simply and terribly counterproductive. It doesn't even matter who is right and who is wrong. Nobody ever goes anywhere when that happens.

It's not who was the developer, it's whether he respects your freedom that matters. If you want to live in freedom, you've got to reject software that tramples your freedom. You shouldn't stand for software that keeps you helpless or forbids helping others. When a program is free software, that means you and others can see what it does. So you can listen to other people in the community who have studied it and used it and thus decide whether you want to use it. If you really are concerned about what the program does, you can read the code yourself.

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